IAB pilots advertising privacy consent blockchain

This week the IAB Tech Lab announced the pilot launch of PrivacyChain and is seeking feedback. The blockchain-based protocol developed by LiveRamp enables companies to track user’s privacy consents across ‘data supply chains’.

A few weeks ago there was a backlash when it was revealed that Google purchased user data from Mastercard. They combined the information with advertising data to demonstrate ad effectiveness.

Companies collect hundreds of millions of data consents annually. But intermediaries are often involved in the process especially with online advertising. Consider the banner ads on a website which are rarely served directly by the publisher. So there’s a need to make sure that user consents are appropriately managed between companies.

The PrivacyChain protocol aims to make it simpler to manage and control how all the relevant parties handle and share users’ personal data. At the same time, users must retain control over opt-in or opt-out.

The immutable blockchain enables opt-in/out data to be shared between publishers and advertisers and provides a standardized consent management solution. Additionally, it helps companies to demonstrate compliance with privacy legislation such as GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act.

“Consent data is some of the most important consumer data that companies collect. Consent is a person’s expression of choice over how their personal data is collected and used. It is vital we respect and honor these individual choices and practice human-values-centered data ethics. PrivacyChain is a data ethics enabling technology and we are proud to collaborate with the IAB Tech Lab to produce a protocol which helps solve the consent challenge for the adtech industry,” said Sheila Colclasure, Chief Data Ethics Officer, LiveRamp.

The IAB Tech Lab was co-founded by the Interactive Advertising Bureau but has its own board. Founders include Hearst Digital, Google and Yahoo. Its mission is to create global industry technical standards.